On the Role of Perceived Safety Concerns on Public Acceptance Behavior of Autonomous Vehicles
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Summary
This study investigates the determinants of public acceptance of autonomous vehicles (AVs), specifically focusing on the role of perceived safety concerns and current travel behavior. The research is motivated by the observation that despite technological advancements, public reluctance toward AVs persists due to fears of system failures and cyber-attacks, potentially hindering the realization of AVs' societal benefits. The authors identify two primary gaps in existing literature: a lack of clear behavioral understanding regarding how safety concerns influence acceptance, and the failure of prior studies to account for the endogeneity between current travel behavior, safety perceptions, and acceptance intentions. To address these gaps, the researchers employed a two-step econometric modeling framework using data from a stated preference survey conducted in California. First, a structural equation model (SEM) was estimated to identify five latent constructs representing individual preferences: vehicle cost, reliability, performance, refueling, and shared mobility usage. Second, a recursive trivariate model with ordinal-continuous outcomes was applied. This model jointly estimated three endogenous variables: current annual vehicle-miles traveled (VMT, continuous), perceived concern about AV safety (ordinal), and intention to accept AVs (ordinal). This joint estimation allowed the authors to disentangle the true structural interdependencies among these variables while controlling for unobserved factors that might simultaneously influence them, thereby avoiding biased results common in sequential modeling approaches. The analysis revealed significant interdependencies among the three outcomes. The model confirmed that perceived safety concerns act as a substantial barrier to AV acceptance. Furthermore, the study found that current travel behavior, measured by VMT, significantly influences both safety concerns and acceptance intentions. The results indicate that individuals with lower VMT, those who are more cost-conscious regarding vehicle attributes, and those with higher safety concerns are distinct cohorts with different acceptance profiles. By accounting for endogeneity, the study provided more accurate estimates of how these latent preferences and behavioral factors interact to shape public opinion. The significance of this work lies in its methodological rigor and policy implications. By using a joint modeling framework, the authors avoided the misleading policy recommendations that can arise from ignoring endogeneity effects. The findings suggest that proactive policy interventions should be tailored to specific population groups. Specifically, strategies to promote AV adoption should target vehicle cost-conscious individuals, those with high safety concerns, and lower-VMT travelers, who may have different travel needs and constraints. This approach enables policymakers to design incentives that address the specific barriers faced by these groups, thereby facilitating broader public acceptance and the successful integration of autonomous mobility into the transportation ecosystem.
Key finding
Perceived safety concerns significantly reduce public acceptance of autonomous vehicles, with the strongest negative effects observed among cost-conscious individuals and those with lower current vehicle-miles traveled.
Methodology
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Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: self report data, observational prevalence